High Anxiety: Even I Feel Unsafe Walking The Streets These Days

I wonder how others must feel when they’re exposed in America

Source: Author / Los Angeles

I was telling my wife the other morning that I no longer enjoy or want to participate in my favorite hobby.

That is, walking around the city. Los Angeles.

This development is nothing short of depressing. As in, it — literally — depresses me.

I have lived in cities for the better part of half of my life. Particularly San Francisco and Los Angeles. I have visited dozens of others, walking many from end to end.

That’s what I love to do. Explore the urban environment.

Even the (sometimes seedy) nooks and crannies where most people, including locals, just don’t go.

And I have never felt unsafe. Maybe a little uneasy here or there in notoriously “bad” neighborhoods or odd, one-off situations. At the same time, I have probably walked through a few parts of town where it never dawned on me that I probably should have felt unsafe or uneasy.

I just love the city. The good, bad and the ugly. And I don’t like to be scared of it. Because — historically — there has been no reason to be. Our perception of crime tends to be much higher than our odds of being victim to it.